The first sight of the citadel had stunned the dream travelers as they walked through the Elephant Gate. The large ramparts of redstone were carved out strikingly against the azure sky. At either end of the gate was a curved bastion of huge walls that seemed to run along the ground endlessly. On the far horizon the sound of a river, running its course, echoed across the land. They had soon learned that their host was none other than Prince Akbar.

"Emperor Akbar, The Great," Yassov had corrected Abuk as they had been taken to their private rooms to prepare for their audience.

"Someday, I’m sure, " Abuk had said, not understanding Yassov’s correct assessment of the child prince. As Abuk had left them alone in the main sitting room of Ed’s chambers, Yassov relayed the history of the reign of Akbar: Emperor of India.

Akbar, The Great as his name is translated, was one of the few moguls of India that ushered in a Golden Age of learning and scientific advancement. Historically speaking, his reign was marked by a widespread tolerance of all religious beliefs and, also, he promoted the ideological discussion of different philosphies through his court at Fatehpur Sikri. In addition, he was the grandfather of Emperor Shahjehan, builder of the Taj Mahal.

"At last, we find a talent other than eating in you!" Bridget said, flopping down on the silken pillows that were scattered around the intricately designed oriental carpet. This practically caused the professor to loose his footing. She had changed into a delicate peach-shaded sari that modestly covered her from head to toe. The idea that her ill-chosen pink dress had been allowed her as a part of her "theme" made her sick with anxiety. However, upon materializing the new sari, her fears had subsided. Ed was full of it, she was sure, they had their control still--it was just limited. "So, how is it you know anything about this place?"

"I am a historian, " Yassov said proudly, "it’s my business to know the major events and places around the world. Mostly my specialty has been World War II and the Holocaust for obvious reasons."

Cynthia had chosen a salwar-kameez combination to wear. She found the cotton fiber of the yellow fabric pant dress cooling against her skin. The dream had been too hot for her liking. "So, why would an emperor be interested in us?" She asked as Ed and she sat down simultaneously.

"Prince at this point in time, it seems," Yassov corrected her. "Curiosity, maybe," Yassov ventured. "As I mentioned earlier, the prince will eventually foster a spirit of intellectual exploration as none seen before in India."

Jasmine had been eyeing the marble walls from her cushion, studying the smoothness of the surface. "What is this place called then?" She asked.

"My guess is that we are in Agra Fort as it was in Emperor Akbar’s time," Yassov said confidently.

"Time-traveling?" Prof. Taslim prompted the question that was in everyone’s mind and all eyes turned to Ed.

"No, it can’t be. Time traveling is not allowed on the second level," Ed said definitively.

"Oh my goodness! Listen to us!" Cynthia shook her head. "You’d think we were beginning to believe that the dream was anything other than a dream. Listen up! It’s a dream whatever the term ‘dream’ might actually mean. What we have to concentrate on is getting rid of these links! Any ideas anyone?"

Jasmine’s blue eyes flashed from Cynthia’s outburst back to Ed’s face, questioningly. Totally ignoring Cynthia’s question, she very slowly formed the thought that had been waiting to come forth. "Ed, I think I’ve been here before. I’m having the strongest feelings of Deja Vu since we walked through the gate."

At her pronouncement all thoughts turned to this new information.

"How could it be? Deja Vu in a dream?" Professor Taslim scoffed openly, realizing the phenomena of Deja Vu was a physical one of time lag between information observed from the left to the right eye.

"Very possible," Ed said looking back at Jasmine, "can you remember why you think you’ve been here before? It would help us to understand how we find ourselves here."

Before Jasmine could think over his question, Abuk appeared again summoning them all to the prince’s banquet.

As they had filed into the room the prince’s eyes had searched their company looking swiftly for his target. At last, they settled on Jasmine, and he quickly got up, off his cushion, and walked towards her. His dark brown eyes searched her face for any hint of recognition on her part. Finding none, he lifted her hand to his face and peered into the palm.

"The Seer’s Star," Prince Akbar said softly, as he outlined the five points of the creased lines in Jasmine’s palms. "You have returned finally, Lokmi. Come and eat with me," the prince continued to hold her hand as he led her, and Yassov, to the pillows besides his. "I see you have brought friends to help us in our journey, no doubt. After we eat I want to know everything that’s happened since we said good-bye. Tell me, what is this new magic you possess," the prince gestured to the twisted strands of light between her and Yassov, "then, tell me what you have discovered since you left."

Jasmine stopped short as the prince tried to seat her next to him. She looked at him frightened to admit her ignorance but unable to do other wise. Her eyes darted for aide to any of her dream companions, but they stared back at her equally uncomprehending. "Prince Akbar," Jasmine took her breath in sharply feeling as if she were swallowing a sword for everyone’s amusement, "I don’t...I honestly don’t remember being here before."

The prince’s eyelids closed slowly in suspicion as he let Jasmine’s hand drop from his jeweled fingers. His brooding eyes jealously traced the link between Jasmine and Yassov before he took the time to scan the rest of the group. "Lokmi, you displeasure me if you have decided to play mind games with me. You promised me you would come back only if you knew how to help us. How is it now you come back but refuse me the vital information for which I first let you leave? Your promise is not fulfilled just by your appearance."

The insidious smell of distrust weaved its way into the room, like an electrical fire smoking it’s way into existence. Jasmine realized she was shuffling her feet in nervousness as she wondered how long it would be before the silence was broken. All eyes were turned her way; and yet, she found herself curiously lacking in confidence at the moment, a situation she despised.

"I’ve got it!" Ed snapped his finger as if trying to command the evil to dissipate. "Jasmine, you gave Prince Akbar a promise to return but you never did. And now you’re here to fulfill the promise!"

"What?!" Jasmine looked at Ed Bishop in dismay. She had expected better from him.

"She did indeed promise," Prince Akbar affirmed.

"But there’s no time travel in level two!" Prof. Taslim whined in exasperation that he’d never figure out the physics of dreams. "You said so, Ed!"

"No time travel, that’s true, but we’re not so much in a different time as a different place. We are in Prince Akbar’s dream when he dreamt it centuries ago. He will remember it as a present dream but we experience it as a current event. He has not moved into the future and we have not moved into the past. We have met in-between. The only place possible to fulfill Jasmine’s, I mean Lokmi’s, promise."

"If this be a dream it is a dream of most certain realities, " Prince Akbar said finally, carving a decision from the growing reek of cooking suspicions, "and I shall prove it to you. Guards! Lock them in the highest spire until this impostor--and her spies--reveal what their purpose is in coming here."

"Wait!" Jasmine’s hand tried to block the Prince’s command in mid-air, "Tell me what it is you want to know! Maybe, I do know the answer."

"Should I ask my enemy the question I need to answer to keep my kingdom and my soul? Hardly!" Prince Akbar laughed a wry, deprecating laugh that stung the dreamers at the harshness of their previous gentile host. "If you were truly Lokmi, you would know what knowledge you left to seek out- and why we have awaited your return impatiently!"

The dream travelers looked hopelessly at Jasmine who shook her head in misery as they were led away.

"How will we ever leave in time?" Jasmine wailed pitifully at Yassov as she stared at the gray stone blocks of their prison floor. "I don’t even know where we are or why I supposedly left!"

Yassov shook his head as he watched her pace to and fro, the white cord of union yanking at him as she reached the walls of her cell only to move back towards the obstinately locked prison door. He had not had a chance to eat before they had been brusquely tried and condemned in one royal haughty breath. His stomach began to rumble loudly as he pressed his dream hands against it in embarrassment and surprise.

"Urrr!" Jasmine wheeled around, her sky blue Sari fluttering behind her brusquely, as she reached the prison door and heard the careless interruption. "Must you always be thinking of food? Where is that brain of yours when we need it?"

Burning under her justifiable condemnation, Yassov stood up and tried to straighten himself proudly; he succeeded in looking only like a portly olive with a pimento-red face. "It has often been said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. You must try and remember. Is it possible you don’t want to remember?"

Jasmine stared thoughtfully at him, deciding that she really did like Yassov despite all her complaints. He wasn’t terribly handsome, but he had an intellectuality that wasn’t shamed by childish displays. He loved life and it showed. However, when it came to being serious, he could put fun aside and give more than a quarter’s worth of decent thoughts. Jasmine could admire that in a man. Also, she had to admit, he had not been as persistent about food since he had become lucid on the second level.

"There are a million possibilities," Jasmine said softly, understanding the magnitude of her dilemma, "I don’t even know where to start. Could the answer be in another dream? Did I leave and come back in a dream like Ed suggests? Or was it a past life that has me entangled now?"

"Past life? God forbid!" Sr. Mary chimed in from the cell next to Jasmine’s, "That’s heresy! "

"I don’t think we should throw out any theories before we’ve tested them out, " Prof. Taslim voted his mind. "After all, maybe Yassov’s right. Maybe she just doesn’t want to remember a past life. Could be nasty, you know?" Prof. Taslim’s neat, straight teeth peeked snidely out of the dusk beginning to enclose the spire cell in darkness.

"Quiet! Quiet all of you!" Cynthia’s voice rose over the argument which had begun to augment like a rolling snowball on a steep incline. "Who care’s if it’s a dream, past life, or figment or our imagination? Who cares whether we are in India, Budapest or Tibet? We still have to get out of here! Let’s attack this problem as analytically and scientifically as we can. Let’s list the facts we know. She began methodically to tick them off for all of them to review:

1. We are probably in a place called Agra Fort.

2. We are in prison.

3. In order to be released by the prince we have to make up a suitable story.

4. We know the prince wants some information from Jasmine but we don’t know what this knowledge is, except that it is a matter of "national security" to Prince Akbar.

5. We are linked together with cords that must have some meaning.

6. We are either in a dream, or we are actually in Agra Fort in Prince Akbar’s time.

"Excuse me, " Yassov said insistently, "I think we must be in a dream despite the reality of the situation. If my memory serves me well, Agra Fort wasn’t built until AFTER Prince Akbar became emperor and then it took four of the Indian moguls to complete it. The fact that it is now completed is inconsistent with history as we know it - thus a dream!"

Jasmine’s smile revealed itself to Yassov who didn’t fail to notice it. He shrugged in modesty.

"Okay, it’s a dream, " Cynthia agreed, "but it strikes me that we are going about this backwards. If it is really a dream, as we now seem to ascertain, then whose dream is it and why are we all in it? Also, even if we answer the prince’s demands we will still be trapped here due to our links. I suggest the answer to our dilemma lies in understanding these links and dissolving them. Let’s forget about the prince’s suspicions, he is just a red herring in my opinion." Cynthia smiled at her clever use of yet another cherished cliché.

"Cynthia! You astound me, " Ed Bishop clapped his hands together in approval, "your logical appraisal of the situation has merit. However, we all know whose dream it is: it’s Jasmine’s, of course. She’s the one that has the starring role, excuse the pun. She’s the one who created this situation in the first place by supposedly making a promise she didn’t keep."

"It’s karma, that’s what it is!" Jasmine snapped her fingers as the thought struck her suddenly. "Cynthia, you trapped me in your dream, however unconsciously, almost causing me psychic harm. Now you are trapped here with me, in my dream. We are all here, just as we were there during the witch trials. The only extra people are Ed and Prof. Taslim. They must have been dragged here due to the links."

"Who was the witch?" Prof. Taslim scoffed at this philosophical determination. "Was it Bridget?"

"No, it was me and Jasmine," Cynthia admitted guiltily, "but if this is Jasmine’s dream, as both Ed and Jasmine suspect, where is she getting all this information on India? "

"It has to be a past life!" Jasmine and Ed echoed each other with their affirmation of the heresy.

A groan of disbelief escaped from Sr. Mary’s cell. "Blasphemy! Another Hindu belief that holds no merit! I won’t take any part in any experiment to remember any so-called past lives."

"You don’t have to, " Ed Bishop said, echoing the knowledge that even Jasmine knew. "You won’t be able to remember until you’ve stepped onto the third level. That’s where all our lives are stored."

"What?! Jasmine’s only chance to understand our predicament is on the third level--which she can’t get to because she’s stuck on the second with us? What have you done to all of us, Ed? You said we could leave the Tower if we became trapped, didn’t you? Well, I choose to leave! Okay, get me back to my nice, cozy bed in Boston." Cynthia’s fists dug deeply into the sides of her cotton yellow salwaar-kameez pant suit as she tried to contain the rage welling up from her frustration.

"Not so simple anymore," Ed winced at Cynthia’s resolution, as he realized this would be hard to explain not just to her but to all of the dreamers, "if you leave, I leave too since I’m linked to you. I would forfeit my chance to balance my karma. It’s a one-in-a-lifetime chance, usually, and I’m not going to give up so easily."

"You don’t know, do you?!" Cynthia accused the shadow in front of her at his obvious deception. The uneasy rage that she had managed to control shot up like a hissing cobra striking Ed’s cheek soundly. "You don’t know how to get out, do you? What have you gotten us into?"

As Bishop rubbed his cheek, Cynthia looked down in hatred at the cord between them and realized the silver cord was throbbing with a ghostly life that was seeping into it; black ink streaked its way into the fibers of the cord. She resolutely turned her back to him in anger.

At the mention of the third level, Prof. Taslim’s eyes had narrowed and focused on his potential victim. Bridget had squirmed under that gaze, muttering that past lives were about as real as dreams were. Then she had startled slightly, realizing what she had just said; this dream was real despite it being a dream.

Jasmine sat quietly next to Yassov as she mulled over how she would make it to the third level. "Don’t worry, Jasmine," Yassov said brushing the dirty blonde hair away from her face, "this isn’t your fault. We all were told of the many dangers we could encounter in the Tower of Dreams. We all chose to be here. I have faith in you. You will remember, somehow." His hand reached over compassionately, caressing her hands soothingly.

She leaned up against him in comfort. The night descended quickly, a carpet of fear being hung against the backdrop of prison bars. The discussion had died down as each dreamer had scurried away with their own worries. Bridget settled down on the straw in the prison cell as far away as her cord would let her move from Prof. Taslim. He had sneered at her openly for this caution on her part. As he rolled around to fall asleep wondering what kind of dreams one had when they were already dreaming, he laughed softly to himself.

"What could you possibly find to laugh at in this situation?" Bridget asked pointedly, exhausted from all the mental assaults she had been fighting.

"Hmm..." Prof. Taslim savored the malice that was better than any food he could have eaten. "I was just thinking how nice it was that the prince merely put us in prison. It’s kind of nice he still left us with our heads, if you get my meaning. But then, I suppose that wasn’t part of our karma." He laughed derisively as he patted the straw and left Bridget to struggle with the thoughts of her own beheading.

Ed walked over and put his hand comfortingly on Cynthia’s shoulder. She had been brooding there for over fifteen minutes, he judged. Her hands tightly clasped together across her chest. Cynthia felt his touch as his fingers sent a warm glow of love to her heart which burst open like a rose feeling the sun’s early morning rays on a chilly English morning.

"Stop that!" She said, unconvincingly, as she brushed his hand away. Her soul craved the sensation that her mind was vehemently denying. "If you want to show me you care, don’t try to control me with your magic spells! Let me go home. Release me from this cord and I’ll go alone." She demanded her eyes begging him to have some sense of decency.

"Even if I could release you, you would never reach home that way." Ed said mysteriously.

"Traps! Riddles! Puzzles!" Cynthia said stubbornly facing his challenge. "Don’t think I’m not a match for you Ed Bishop, just because I can’t wave my hand and have you do whatever I want you to."

"Would you like to do that?" Ed asked mischievously seeing the red aura surrounding her which emanated loads of unproductive sexual energy. "I don’t think I’d mind that at all."

Cynthia ignored the sexual innuendo and the sultry tones in Ed’s voice. She’d been approached many times before with better lines than his, but she realized that might be the key to her exit out of this nightmare world forever. One didn’t have to be magical to manipulate a person, especially sexually. She knew just how to get to him, when he was least aware of it: when they were both awake. She would pretend she was interested in all his philosophies, and thought he was the Valentino of Valentino’s. No mention would be made of the cord until it was certain she had him in her own spell. Then she would break his heart if he didn’t do what she asked, as cruelly and as viciously as she could manage. She would have her revenge or get her freedom. It was a sure thing.

"Goodnight! " Cynthia said abruptly as she stretched out on the floor awaiting the promise of the morning. Closing her eyes she opened them to the morning sunlight realizing it was Wednesday. She had only five days left to carry out her plan.

CHAPTER 7